The Communist Party in the first half of the 20th century instituted mass literacy campaigns among the peasantry and workers so they could use literature as a tool to control the Soviet population. Joseph Stalin called on Soviet writers to become “engineers of the human soul” (Zhdanov 684). They were responsible for the creation of literature designed to teach Russian citizens how to become good Soviets under the Party. It was necessary for the early leaders of the Soviet Union to reconstruct both Russia’s literary canon, and the framework of the publishing industry.
Literacy rates in Pre-Soviet Russia at the end of the 19th century were low. The overall literacy rate for the country was 28.4%. (Mironov 243). There were few schools in rural areas and only the wealthy could afford to educate their children. Low access to education was the norm until 1928 when Stalin’s Cultural Revolution began. He implemented his first five year plan calling for collectivisation and industrialization of the peasant farms. In a push for a modern, communist Russia “the government…established programs for compulsory education and universal literacy” (Smith 149). In 1928 there had been eight million rural students, but by 1933 that number had risen to fourteen million (Smith 149). The number of people with a basic ability to read increased dramatically in the first half of the 20th century. By 1959, 98.2% of people in rural areas had a basic level of literacy (Mironov 243).
As literacy rates rose many expressed a desire for “literature with a readable and clear message and realistic and meaningful portrayals of their lives” (Smith 150). By the mid 1930s upwards of 50% of the rural population could read (Mironov 243). This increase coincided with the founding of the Soviet Writer’s Union in 1932 which changed the entire framework of the publishing industry (Gerrard 12). Any writers who wished to publish in the Soviet Union had to be members of the Writer’s Union. Russia had a thriving modernist movement up until 1928. However, from 1928 until 1932 the former modernist writers were vilified in the press. Soviet critics devalued it for its experiments with form and language or claimed their complex work was hiding anti-Soviet messages. As a result, no publishing house would print or distribute their work (Livak). After five years of ridicule and poverty, the invitation to join the Writer’s Union was welcomed by the former modernists.
The Soviet Writers Union was a way for the Party “to achieve the tightest control over the entire literary profession by putting all writers … in the one organization with a communist faction at its core” (Ermaloev 153). At the first meeting of the Writer’s Union the Soviet critic, Andrei Zhdanov gave a speech that introduced the concept of Socialist Realism. From 1932 to 1953 when Stalin died, all literary works published by Soviet writers were to be Socialist Realist texts. Socialist Realism displayed life not as it was, but as it should be in a Socialist utopia (Ermaloev 53). Socialist Realist novels would have clear meanings and simple language easy for a newly literate society to understand. It was designed to teach the Russian people to become strong Soviet citizens. This was literature’s only purpose in the USSR.
The Writer’s Union made it nearly impossible for seditious materiel to reach a wide audience. Stalin had control of what people were reading, and therefore what they were being taught to think. Nearly everyone extended an invitation into the Union accepted it because it meant an increase in social standing, material wealth, and guaranteed publishing contracts (Altbach 563). Some writers joined the Union, but refused to write anything. Isaac Babel declared himself a master of the genre of silence (Eaton 185). This was dangerous. Babel was shot by a firing squad at Lubyanka prison in 1940 (Updike 221). Showing open disregard for any Stalinist policy in the 1930s and 1940s was suicidal. Stalin was famously quoted as saying “No one is irreplaceable” (Lewin 89). In the Party mindset, a writer’s value came only from their work as part of a collective whole aimed at controlling the readership of the Soviet Union.
Works Cited:
Altbach, Philip G. International Book Publishing: An Encyclopedia. London: Fitzroy Dearborn,
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Eaton, Katherine Bliss. Enemies of The People: The Destruction of Soviet Literary, Theater, and
Film Arts in the 1930s. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 2002.
Ermolaev, Herman. Censorship in Soviet Literature, 1917-1991. London: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1997.
Gerrard, Carol. Inside the Soviet Writers Union. New York: Macmillan, 1990.
Lewin, Moshe, and Gregory Elliott. The Soviet Century. London: Verso, 2005.
Livak, Leonid. “Introduction to 20th Century Soviet Literature.” 20th Century Russian Prose.
SLA 340, Toronto. 18 Jan. 2012. Lecture.
Mironov, Boris. “The Development of Literacy in Russia and the USSR from the Tenth to the
Twentieth Centuries.” History of Education Quarterly 21.2 (Summer 1991).
Smith, Michael. Language and Power in the Creation of the USSR, 1917-1953. Walter De
Gruyter, 1998.
Updike, John. Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.
Zhdanov, Andrei. “Report on the Journals Zvezda and Leningrad.” 1964. Coursepack SLA340.
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